"I'm going to break her kneecaps": Salma Hayek opens up about Weinstein allegations

Salma Hayek has spoken to Oprah Winfrey about her allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

Actress Salma Hayek has opened up to Oprah Winfrey about the way in which Harvey Weinstein allegedly bullied and abused her.

At a taping of Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations, Hayek detailed the abuse she faced during the production of the 2002 film Frida, in which Hayak starred as artist Frida Kahlo.

“He told me he wanted to kill me,” she said. “He said to Julie Taymor [the film’s director] ‘I am going to break the kneecaps of that ‘c word’.”

Hayek had been invited to be part of the New York Times’ original story exposing Weinstein – but she felt her story wasn’t important enough.

“They contacted me to be a part of the first story and already by this contact, there was all this turmoil and I started crying when they asked and I ended up not doing it,” she said. “And then I felt ashamed that I was a coward. I was supporting women for two decades, and then I was a coward.”

“He had a lot of respect for me. I earned it with blood, but he did. When the information about Harvey came out, I was ashamed I didn’t say anything. But I felt like my pain was so small compared to all the other stories.”

“But it wasn’t one or two instances. It was five years.”

Hayek had previously outlined the alleged abuse in a piece for the New York Times entitled ‘Harvey Weinstein Is My Monster Too’. In the piece, she alleges that Weinstein pressured her into performing a sex scene with a female co-star that neither were comfortable with.

“I had brainwashed myself into thinking that it was over and that I had survived; I hid from the responsibility to speak out with the excuse that enough people were already involved in shining a light on my monster,” she wrote. “I didn’t consider my voice important, nor did I think it would make a difference.”

“In reality, I was trying to save myself the challenge of explaining several things to my loved ones: Why, when I had casually mentioned that I had been bullied like many others by Harvey, I had excluded a couple of details. And why, for so many years, we have been cordial to a man who hurt me so deeply.”

“I had been proud of my capacity for forgiveness, but the mere fact that I was ashamed to describe the details of what I had forgiven made me wonder if that chapter of my life had really been resolved.”

Images: Rex Features

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Emily Reynolds

Emily Reynolds is a journalist and author based in London. Her first book, A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind, came out in February 2017 with Hodder & Stoughton. She is currently working on her second.